
where we define \(X^\text{d}\)  and \(X^\ell \)  dimension-1 topological features as “interstripe loops" or “stripe loops" using Eqns. () and (REF ), respectively, and exclude features with infinite death times \(d_i\) . Here \(\Delta _{MX^\text{d}}\)  is the mean distance between nearest melanophores and dense xanthophores at the stripe–interstripe interface for the specific simulation in question; see Figure REF (j). Subtracting \(\Delta _{MX^\text{d}}\)  prevents us from counting the interface-boundary distance twice. Our measurements of the width of any given (inter)stripe should be interpreted as maximum widthIn comparison, McGuirl et al. [1]} defined stripe width using the persistence of \(X^\text{d}\)  loops. This approach [1]} is similar to ours but does not account for the fact that the distance between \(M\)  and \(X^\text{d}\)  cells is larger than the distance between like cells. Additionally, due to an error in ball radius versus diameter, the summary statistics in [1]} report double (inter)stripe width.. As an illustrative example of this, in Figure REF (a), the width of the dark stripe between the bottom two interstripes is slightly larger than 460 \(\mu \) m \(- \Delta _{MX^\text{d}}\) , since a small amount of white space (a hole) is still visible in between the interstripes at \(\varepsilon = 460\)  \(\mu \) m.
